Reuters reports, "Beijing's increasingly frantic attempts to stem a stock market rout were finally rewarded as Chinese shares bounced around 6 percent on Thursday, but the costs of heavy-handed state intervention are likely to weigh on the market for a long time. The rebound came after China's securities regulator, in its most drastic step yet to arrest the slump, banned shareholders with large stakes in listed firms from selling. The banking regulator said separately it would allow lenders to roll over loans backed by stocks. The CSI300 index of the largest listed companies in Shanghai and Shenzhen raced higher to close up 6.4 percent, while the Shanghai Composite Index bounced 5.8 percent for its biggest daily percentage gain in six years. But China's malfunctioning stock markets remained semi-frozen, with the shares of around 1,500 listed companies worth around $2.8 trillion - roughly half the market - suspended, and many of those still trading propped up by state-directed buying."
"China has released a draft cybersecurity law that seeks to beef up Beijing's ability to guard against cyberthreats and protect data on Chinese users, while also tightening controls over the Internet. Chinese officials have made passage of a cybersecurity law a priority for this year, reflecting the urgency of the issue in the national-security agenda of President Xi Jinping 's administration. China, which is often accused of waging cyberwarfare against other states but which says it is itself a victim of such attacks, accelerated cybersecurity efforts after former U.S. government contractor Edward Snowden said U.S. intelligence agencies used U.S. technology to spy on other governments," writes The Wall Street Journal.
NBC News writes, "weeks of punishing losses on China's stock markets have triggered questions about the Communist Party's stewardship of the world's second-largest economy - and whether it can maintain the population's confidence if the crisis worsens. China's main stock markets closed up on Thursday, a welcome respite for investors after three weeks of plunging prices. But the rises did not come close to reversing recent falls. Since June 12, $3.5 trillion in value has been wiped off the Shanghai and Shenzhen Composites. Experts agree that authorities are desperately trying to stabilize the markets because the Communist Party's credibility is at stake. Until the market rout, many people simply didn't understand that prices could fall. If their current unhappiness turns into unrest, the government will be forced to grapple with a political crisis as well